Chip cards presently are used in a variety of applications and comprise a card of approximately the same size as a standard credit card. The card, itself, contains intelligence in the form of a memory circuit. A card reader is used to detect certain information stored on the card.
One such chip card is identified as a "Subscriber's Identification Module" or "SIM" which is a miniature chip card for use in small hand held devices such as pocket size cellular telephones. The SIM provides user identification in individual telephone handsets and the SIM card reader readily accommodates insertion and removal of the SIM to provide quick identification and easy access by a cellular telephone user.
Other applications of chip cards are in instantaneous bank teller facilities, cable television decoders or descramblers, pay TV machines, pay telephones, health cards and a variety of other uses.
A typical SIM or other chip card has exposed contact pads for matingly engaging underlying cantilevered contacts of a SIM connector or card reader. The card is inserted and removed manually, thereby exposing the underlying contacts.
Because of the frequent use of a chip card and because the same card can be used in a variety of applications, the number of mating cycles required of a card and, therefore, the card reader connector is ever increasing. Known chip card readers utilize friction-style contacts whereby the card contacts frictionally engage corresponding contacts on the card reader. However, because of repeated insertion and withdrawal of the card, problems are encountered because the contacts on both the card and the reader become worn and their performance quality eventually is unfavorably affected. Therefore, some card readers have incorporated mechanisms whereby the insertion and withdrawal of a card from the reader does not continually wear on the contacts. Instead, the card contacts engage the reader contacts only after the card is inserted. One such mechanism, called a "landed-style terminal mechanism" has greatly increased the number of cycles of card readers by moving the reader contacts into engagement with the card contacts only after the card is fully inserted. However, these types of mechanisms can be complicated and expensive and, therefore, are not always desirable.
There is a need for a simple card reader receptacle or connector that achieves the increased cycle requirements of new card reader applications but which is neither expensive nor complicated. The present invention is directed to satisfying this need and solving the problems discussed above.